ipr 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JAN. 14, 1875. 



For Forest and Stream. 

 THE ROARING KILL. 



FAR up in the forest glen, 

 Where the f..athery sweet ferns grow, 

 JrlQSsy nook, whose charms Jl ken, 



Whence the gurgling fountains flow. 

 Elfin chamber, perfumed still, 

 Birth-place of the "Soaring Kill." 



Cloud wreaths veil the mountain's head, 



Trickle down his shaggy heard, 

 Mingling dew drops, gently spread, 



From each defile, cool and Weird. 

 fribbling, tinkling. «"»nv » "Mi 

 Wayward, roaming, "Koaring Kill," 



Blendld rills, to music sweet 



Hippie 'ueuth the wi'.dwood shade, 

 Jlork the hours, with flying feet, 



Through the sunshine-dappled glade, 

 Nodding trees, on either hill, 

 Greet the bonnle "Roaring Kill." 



Like mlshapen giants old. 



Sturdy boulders guard the way, 

 These the rising flood enfold, 



Crested o'er with pearly spray. 

 Free born, naught can stay Its will, 

 Fleet and strong the "Koaring Kill," 



Smooth it glides by meadows green, 



Spangles o'er the pebbly trend, 

 Slips the tangled roots between, 



Where [he light plumed willows bend 

 Fast the busy, clattering mill, 

 Leaps the liuoj ant, "Itoaiing Kill. 1 ' 



Of its full grown beauty chary, 



Loiters now with hidden face, 

 Till the dusky hued Scnbarie 



Clasps it in a glad embrace. 

 Glossy birdlings, softly trill, 

 Love songs to the "Hearing Kill." T. W. A. 



INTERIOR EXPLORATIONS— FLORA, 

 FAUNA, AND GEOLOGICAL FORMA- 

 TION. ^ 



[Continued from January 1th.] 



CHAPTER III. 



GEESE, (Anas Uanadmxk,) and ducks, the black duck 

 (Ana* boschas),are. met with in great numbers in the inte- 

 rior, the ducks in particular in the central parts of the island. 

 There, remote from man, they breed undisturbed on the 

 edges and islands of the ponds and lakes. The geese moult 

 soon after their arrival in the Spring; and, owing to the 

 loss of Iheir pinion feathers, are unable to fly during the 

 Summer or breeding seasons; but they can then run faster 

 than a man on the marshes, and if surprised at, or near a 

 pond, they will plunge iu and remain under water with 

 their bills only above the surface to permit of breathing, 

 until the enemy has passed by. They feed on berries — pre- 

 ferring that of the Empelum nigrum, and the seeds of 

 grasses. Both the old and young become enabled to fly in 

 September; and as soon after that as the frost affects the 

 berries and causes the seeds of the grasses on the marshes 

 and savannas to fall to the earth, or otherwise when the 

 snow falls and covers the ground, they collect in flocks — 

 and fly off to the Southern shores of the island and from 

 thence to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They remain there 

 until December, and then assembled, take flight in im- 

 mense flocks to the southern parts of America, to return iu 

 the Spring. The ducks do not quit the interior for the sea 

 coast so early as the geese; that is, not until the pools and 

 ponds in which they obtain their food are frozen over, and 

 they are the last of the birds of passage seen here ! Loons 

 of two species breed in the interior, almost every lake, as 

 observed, nearer to the sea coast, beiug occupied during 

 the Summer season by a pair of them. Likewise the com- 

 mon sea-gull, early in the Spring, which fly off to the sea in 

 July and August. Curlews breed on the barren hills; 



snipes, (jack,) a kind of rrodwit (called yellow legs,) and 

 bitterns on the marshes; but the first had now all gone to 

 the sea coast. The red-breasted thrush, (Tardus migratonex,) 

 breed in the scanty woods, near to where berries abound; 

 they fly off in flocks to the coast in September, and from 

 thence to the more southern countries. There are several 

 species of hawks and owls here; of the former genus, one 

 species was very small. 



The rivers and lakes abound with trout of three or four 

 kinds, differing in size and color. In one of the source 

 branches of Gander River which we crossed, we caught 

 some small fish, apparently salmon fry. A species of fish 

 larger than the trout is said by the Indians to be found in 

 several of the large lakes. 



We were nearly a month in passing over one savanna 

 after another. In the interval there are several low gran- 

 itic beds, stretching as the savannas, northerly and south- 

 erly. During this lime wc shot only a few deer, but many 

 geese, ducks, and beavers, which, with trout, constituted 

 our principal food. When we had no game to subsist on, 

 the killing of which, although certain, was irregular, we 

 subsisted on berries, which some spots produced in prodi- 

 gal abundance. I longed for bread for about ten days 

 after our stock was consumed, but after that did not miss it. 



When we met deer in a herd, we seldom failed in shoot- 

 ing the fattest. The venison was excellent; the fat upon 

 the haunches of some of them was two inches in thick- 

 ness. We shot them with ball or swan shot, according to 

 distance. The leading stag of a herd is generally the fat- 

 test, he is as tall as a horse,, and must sometimes be shot at 

 full speed, sometimes by surprise. The ball having pierced 

 him, he bounds, gallops, canters, faulters, stands, and tosses 

 his antlers; his sinewy limbs quiver, unwillingly bend, and 

 he stretches out his graceful corpse. Should the ball have 

 passed through his heart, he falls at. once, probably bal- 

 anced on all fours. There is regret as well as triumph felt 

 in taking possession of the noble vanquished; the broad 

 spreading hoofs of the deer are admirably formed for pre- 

 venting their sinking into'the marshes. A single deer on 

 the plain, when there are no others near to give the alarm, 

 may be approached and knocked down by a blow on the 

 head witli an axe or tomahawk from a dexterous hunter. 

 We happened to see a solitary stag amusing himself by 

 rubbing his antlers against a larch tree on a plain; my 

 Indian, treading lightly, approached him from behind, and 

 struck him on the head with his axe, but did not knock 

 him down; he of course galloped off. The flesh of the 

 beaver is by the Indians esteemed the finest of all quad- 

 rupeds of the chase, and that of the young beaver justly 

 so — in taste it is more like lamb than any other meat. In 

 butchering it, with the skin is flayed off the lining of fat, 

 which is sometimes two inches thick round the body. 

 Beavers are commouly shot on the water; they seldom come 

 out of their houses by day, but are abroad all night; be- 

 fore sunrise the hunter posts himself undiscovered as near 

 as possible to the leeward side of their house, the beavers 

 at that time come out, one following another; directly any 

 of their heads appear above the water, it is fired at either 

 with ball or shot, and sometimes a whole family is thus 

 killed in succession; if any escape, their return to their 

 house is watched before sunrise next morning in like man- 

 ner as their departure was in the evening — their bodies float 

 to the shore. The black duck shot in the interior remote 

 from the sea, is the finest bird for the table in Newfound- 

 land. The trout are easily caught in the rivulets in the 

 interior, they beingso unacquainted with enemies as to take 

 the artificial fly merely by holding out the line iu the hand 

 without a rod. No country in the world can afford finer 

 sport than the interior of this inland in the months of 

 August and September. The beasts of the chase are of a 

 large class, and the cover for all game excellent. 



The waters which we crossed contributed sometlung to 

 the rivers of the north, and .sometimes to those of the 

 south side of the island. We occasionally crossed some of 

 the large lakes on rafts when our course lay across them 

 and the wind happened to be fair, and there appeared 

 nothing to induce us lo go round their extremities. We 



accomplished this by fastening together three or four trunks 

 of tree.; with withes, and held up a thick bush for a sail, 

 and were blown over. There was, of course, considerable 

 risk to our accoutrements attcuding this primitive mode of 

 navigation. The proportion of water to land in the savan- 

 na country is very great. In some directions northward 

 one half seems to be lakes, of every size and form; in 

 other directions, one third, and seldom less. The marbled, 

 glossy surface, as it appeared from the rising ground, was 

 singularly novel and picturesque. 



In some of the forests, strips of the trees are all borne 

 down in Hie same direction— flat to the earth — by wind, 

 and the havoc displayed is awful. Such parts were almost 

 impassable; the way through Ihe woods elsewhere, except 

 by the deer paths, is obstructed by wind-fallen trees and 

 brushwood. There are extensive districts remarkable for 

 abundance of berries towards the centre of the island, 

 which attract great numbers of black bears. The paths, or 

 beats of these animals throughout their feeding grounds 

 are stamped with marks of antiquity seemingly coeval 

 with the country. The points of rocks that happen to pro- 

 ject in their way are perfectly polished from having been 

 continually trodden aud rubbed. Although we had seen 

 fresh tracks of wolves every day, and were sometimes 

 within a few yards of them iu the thickets, yet we only 

 caught a glimpse of one of them. They lie iu wait among 

 the bushes aud listen for the approach of deer, and rush 

 upon them. When they saw man instead of deer, they 

 immediately fled. There are two kinds of wolves here- 

 one large, that prowls singly or in couples; another small, 

 sometimes met with in packs. 



Taking a general view of the mineralogy of the savanna 

 territory, the rocks of the savannas are granite quartz and 

 chlorite grceustone— the same as already noticed— mica, 

 chlorite, and transition clay slates. The granite is pink 

 and grey, and sienitic. It throws itself in low beds lying 

 northerly and southerly, higher than the savannas, and also 

 appears with the greenstone and slate rocks at the edges of 

 the lakes and other water courses. It occurs of a globular 

 structure on the verge of the savanna country westward of 

 that branch of Clode Sound River which we crossed. The 

 balls are round, and vary in size from a few inches to a 

 fathom and upwards in diameter. Iu the whole of this 

 savanna territory which forms the eastern ceutral portion 

 of the iuterior, there rises but one mountain, which is a 

 solitary peak or pap of granite, standing very conspicuous 

 about forty-live miles north from the mouth of the west 

 Salmon River of Fortune Bay on the south coast. It 

 served as an object by which to check our course and dis- 

 tance for about tw o weeks. I named it Mount Sylvester, 

 the name of my Indian. The bed of granite, of which 

 Mount Sylvester is a part, is exposed iu a remarkable man- 

 ner to the northeast of that pap near Gower Lake. Hera 

 are displayed the features of the summit of an immense 

 mounlaiu mass, as if just peeping above the earth; huge 

 blocks of red, pink, and gray granite— often very coarse 

 grained, and of quartz — but compact and granular, lie in 

 cumbrous und confused heaps, over which we had to 

 climb, leap, slide, and creep. They sometimes lie in fan- 

 tastical positions, and upon an enormous mass of gray 

 granite may be seen, as if balanced on a small point of 

 contact, another huge mass of red granite more durable in 

 quality, and this crowned by a third boulder. Their equi- 

 librium invites the beholder to press his shoulder to them 

 to convince hiin of his feebleness. These masses seem lo 

 be the remaiuiug modules of strata or beds that once ex- 

 isted here; the more perishable parts having long since, 

 crumbled and disappeared, thus evincing the power of 

 time. Quartz rock, both granular and compact, the latter 

 sometimes rose colored, occurs, associated with granite. 

 On the summit of a low, bristly ridge, formed principally 

 of granular quartz, nearly half way across the island, are 

 two large masses of granular quartz, standing apart at the 

 bottom and nearly meeting at top; seen at a distance from 

 the north or south, they have the appearance of one masa 

 with a hole through it. Hence, this spot is called Rock 

 Hole by the Indians. Plates of mica, six inches and up- 



